PM me your email so we can take this off line. We can usually find a way to work with you (depending on cable length) regardless of your location. Thank you for your interest!
@rower30
How’d you evaluate the negligibility in improvements, were there to be ICONOCLAST cabling with purely OCC silver conductors?
I wonder, if Belden hypothetically was to purchase Siltech and employ their monocrystal silver in ICONOCLAST designs, could we really expect any notable increases in “magic”? Okay, okay… Far fetched but it kind of bugs me that Siltech is, as is I trust, a true pioneer in metallurgy but that’s just not enough, as good as their products might be. While they employ proprietary geometries, I simply can’t trust they’re anywhere near as perfected as the ICONOCLAST design. Still they sell for tens of thousands.
This is just an example.
(To add, I haven’t auditioned Siltech against ICONOCLAST and never will)
Oh, please god, not more cables. These things mutate faster than you-know-what. 
I’ll need to hit Al up for a loan. Or rob a bank or something …
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Short answer - I’m not sure how much fairer we can make wire choice but to boil it down to the copper, and nothing but the copper. No design changes to hide what may or may not be happening between copper choices. Who else does this?
We don’t sell metal’s properties outside of the known measured properties; resistivity, grains and skin depth are measurable or can be calculated, for example. All ICONOCLAST cables are designed with TPC copper as the base metal. Alternative metals can be introduced with CHANGES made to the designs to adjust for the resistivity changes but…sometimes this is WORSE than using a higher resistivity metal. Not all electrical analog properties respond to simple DCR of the metal where “lower” is always better. The individually insulated ICONOCLAST conductor design RAISES the resistivity of each strand on purpose to achieve alternative properties, and uses multiple strands to meet DCR. The design responds to HIGHER resistance, not lower.
As far as grains (same as crystals, which is a marketing term as crystals aggregate to form grains) due to draw speed you’ll get fewer the slower and cooler you draw the metal. Modern induction furnaces pretty much scavenge off the gasses used to absorb and remove impurities to near ZIP. Count all those zeros after the decimal? Yes, TPC copper is VERY good copper today. We also surface finish the copper for high GHz frequency performance that is far more critical than 20 KHz applications. I use this same copper in ICONOCLAST.
Cold draw copper is very low in elongation, so there are trade-odds to how you want to manage the grains.
As the copper, or any metal, goes through a cold draw drawing die, length and die angle variables, it generates heat, more on the surface than the center. You need to anneal the copper after cold drawing. Either in-line (best) or batch anneal (stick it in a big oven) re-sets the grains after cold forming.
Grain Size | Fisk Alloy
Grain Size is controlled by the annealing process. The metal is
heated to a temperature above its recrystallization temperature. At
this temperature the atoms in the cold work distorted crystalline
structure use the cold work energy stored in the crystal lattice plus
energy absorbed from heating to nucleate into new orderly
crystalline patterns. These new grains are then capable of
absorbing new amounts of cold work. The size of the new grain
depends on the annealing temperature, the time at temperature, the
preceding amount of cold work and the grain size from the
preceding anneal. Grain size measurement is predicated on the
assumption that in fully annealed wrought metal the grain
morphology is equiaxed; the apparent size of each grain is
essentially the same for any axis of measurement. In reality, a
metal structure is an aggregate of grains varying in size and shape.
The grain size is an estimate of the average size and is reported in millimeters. (See ASTM E112.)
Drawn metals are really expensive when you slow the draw process WAY down to reduce grains, or use a LOT volume feed method, like is used with UP OCC, that severely limits the LENGTH of the draw and the speed, both.
We sell the “cost” associated with the proper measured and calculated design. Copper won’t change what we measure and or calculate. Customers can compare and contrast to TPC copper and see if they feel the expense is needed in their systems. If you’ve read this far, my new product introduction in a few weeks is not material changes. None at all. Same, same there.
Best,
Galen
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Exactly. Why I was inquiring about pure silver conductors is not really because of its resistivity, rather its unique contribution, “signature” if I may… ahem, to signal transmission, which is a whole whose description is far removed from such static aspects as resistivity alone and most of which we still don’t seem to understand. What comes to any metal, gold for example… It always comes to be described sonically in a unique manner and seems to have some strong special merits in voltage transmission.
The few companies producing pure gold interconnects admit to not knowing why gold does the favours it does. The best hypothesis I’ve read so far was that gold has its outermost electron two orbitals farther than copper (1 farther than silver) so this could influence its “ease of displacement” for conducting. Doesn’t translate to resistance.
And of course every metal has its own characteristics with grains, everything. Me, I’d personally love to understand some day what are physical key distinguishing factors that give materials their unique transmission character. Rhodium is interesting too - fairly high resistivity but it does something with high frequencies that often translates well within certain systems.
Is there such a thing as a material-specific impedance, roughly stated? Seems so, but under the rough term might lie physics that go well into the quantum rabbit hole.
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Remember your chemistry. An electron won’t move until it’s exact outer valence band energy state is reached. The outer shell position determines what that energy level is and thus, the resistance of a metal. We hear the EM wave as our signal and it is moving at the speed of the dielectric…much faster than the electrons are moving down the wire. When an electron completes the move to the next atom’s valence band, the EM signal is already at the end of the cable.
Look at it like this, if we have a tube full of marbles end to end, and we insert one into either end one has to pop out the other end at the same exact time the marble at the other end is fully inserted. That marble popping out is the “signal”. How far did ALL the marbles move in the tube, though? Exactly ONE marble length. The signal moves way faster than the electron. The metal wire has no effect on that speed, the dielectric around the wire does. The metal wire changes attenuation, not the speed of the EM wave down the wire. A pure silver, gold you name it wire has the exact same speed as the dielectric. Just the attenuation changes from the resistivity factor. Sure, the skin effect alters resistance and resistance go up with the square of the frequency so the lowest resistivity pays off at higher (1 GHz and up) frequencies where the EM wave isn’t in the central wire’s material composition but on the “skin”.
Also remember some metals are used as they are good at TWO things but not the greatest or the best at ONE thing. Connectors have to have oxidation resistance over insulated wire of any kind. Gold, Tin, Rhodium and the like all offer decent surface contact resistance and also resist oxidation. The downside is cost to get oxidation and conductivity BOTH pretty good. Connectors use special metal in small QTY to offset that cost problem.
Metals can’t enhance a signal in the analog domain, only DISTORT it. The best situation is a pass through process if it can be achieved. It can’t, and we distortion all analog signals in the audio band. The reactive components have to be weighed for their negative aspect and achieve the proper balance. We have amplitude, phase and Vp differential (group delay) to manage. Resistance impacts one and L and C the other two and the balance of L and C biases which of the two.
In analog audio, Inductance reduces phase (there is a tech paper on that, using all standard stuff to measure it) and higher current tends to increase that phase shift compared to lower current levels. Still, we’d like to keep capacitance to reasonable levels. Speaker cables are best balanced to low inductance over capacitrance…to a point.
IC cables that have little current into high load impedance and thus better phase, and phase gets worse with more current. We can lower capacitance some for interconnect voltage signals but Vp is controlled with C and R balance, not inductance. We need to pay attention to resistance and capacitance and what it does to Vp. Cable is a three legged stool. You can’t change one leg and not see the effects on the other two.
People are still stuck on “magic” of material where there is none that is measurable and/or reproducable. Not that materials aren’t different, but I see no true “magic” measurements past what we know now that defines the advantages. If the electromagnetic wave isn’t changed, we can’t hear it. It HAS TO change to alter the “signal” we call audio. I have not seen any approved EM based distortion measurements to capture what wire composition does, so we offer alternative coppers but it is more based on cost and demand than pure data past grain and resistivity. Both are so small that R, L and C are essentially the same. We measure every assembly for you.
Let’s not forget every circuit board be it a preamp or power amp uses lots of copper traces and wires. What are all those doing? What does the signal path look like to and out of the external cables? Analog adds ALL the distortions along the way. I’m simply trying to keep the part I make as neutral as I can and in fact based designs.
Special considerations can reduce the level of L and C and offset the work to manage Vp to the wire’s resistance, and resistance has low distortion over either L and C with respect to time. Our cables are short relatively speaking so a little more R isn’t an issue and proper design can even knock that back to near nothing. It is all in the understanding of how everything is related and what the circuit really looks like to the signal.
I’ll have more insight into this later on with the new product introduction. It all works based on the DESIGN, not the just materials, which are along for the ride and have the easiest job of all. Anyone can smatter materials around, few can get it into the right design.
Best,
Galen
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Don’t worry, the new designs are design and calculation based changes that are real, and thus will also show if there are any real benefit to you in your system.
I don’t care how many kinds of gress, rocks or mountains there are in the world to name cable after, that won’t impact the brands cable selection. Physics determines that. If we can get it done as far as I can with three or even just two designs in true steps of analog capability, there will be just two to three cables and that’s it. Right now two looks pretty good for RCA and XLR cables.
I would “retire” lesser designs if something magical happens and there is a third design to keep the mix near the state of the art. Why drag the 1950’s model around in 2020’s?
Don’t worry, we won’t ever have enough SKU product numbers for each cable type that would fill a MUSIC DIRECT catalog all by themselves.
Good point you make, though. I promised I’d make cable that is truly better in the analog domain and not the sales and marketing domain. When the calculation and measurements have to be done, and is comparable…product drift is much harder to justify without the numbers!
Best,
Galen
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[quote=“rower30, post:3291, topic:2038”]
People are still stuck on “magic” of material where there is none that is measurable and/or reproducable.
It seems to me that there’s no better example of the “magic” influence of materials on sound quality than your cables. Same design, different material, different influence on sound that makes it’s way to our ears.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to conclude that we haven’t yet figured out how or what to measure for the sq variables of materials?
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As always, thank you Galen, for your valuable intellectual contributions in advancing the science of cable design, as well as bringing joy and great value to the audiophile community through your affordable and unique cable designs. I can’t wait to hear more about your new patent award, and product(s)!
I also wanted to share something I just came across the other day, which will likely blow everyone’s minds. These links explain how power transmission along cables (conductors) in a circuit actually works, hence implying why there are variances in audible nuances among different audio cables and “antennas” which connect component chassis to grounding “kitty litter” boxes… it’s all in the propagation of electromagnetic energy, and NOT the flow of electrons!
Part 1:
Part 2:
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My tongue was firmly in my cheek, Galen 
My “loom” is 100% Iconoclast. Great work.
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Hi Ron,
Semantics but…there can be ZERO chance a cable is better with ANY material if the design isn’t “sound”. A pun there, sorry about that!
So no, I stand in the camp that the heavy lifting is still a good design far and above magic metals and stuff using “appropriarte” materials. Once a design has captured the, let’s call it conventional physics design, then and only then are materials worth a comparison. How can you hear the nuances of tertiary changes with their advantages handicapped in a poor design? Analog is still a sum of all the parts.
ICONOCLAST designs to a true measurable and calculation standards methodology to metric advancements. Analog is an additive distortion that requires every circuit block to be as linear as we can get it.
Our systems, as I said earlier in this thread, are sometimes pretty diabolical when we add equal and opposite distortions to thus say we have “accuracy”. We now have TWO inaccurate blocks and this makes it even harder to get a true and most linear system end to end.
ICONOCLAST is just a design based effort to keep the cable itself near linear as true design allows. I also want to design the cable to a value center and feel TPC copper is a significant value when used in a proper class of cable design. Should we stop doing that?
Some may want to add more distortion to offset other linearity issues. I chose to go the route of PROVEN methods of measurement and calculation to most assure a better analog performance. Yep, stuff down stream or upstream are left more “naked” with an ideal stage, I agree. But this is a better approach as we add more linearity and less distortions to the chain.
I hate magic. I design with the opposite for our hobby as I feel it is well worth the effort. Sure, better design brings improvement to “magic” alloy wires if it is there. The foundation is more proper to bring any advantages as most forward as they can. Or, it shows where they are deficient through the audio band and more suited to DC or RF. More on that last sentence later.
For example better fundamental design also brings better current coherence due to skin effect if it is there. Skin effect is there to accepted standards of measurement. The argument is how it all balls up to a gain in performance against all the other changes. Those are tertiary to the overall design’s major advancement I feel are more important. I could address the tertiary elements with utter garbage electromagnetic designs that ignore other variables. Mother nature tends to give away her secrets when we see designs that help advance across a broad base of varibles, and not just one.
The balance of the physics is what created ICONOCLAST. A good design should address KNOWNS and thus even UNKNOWNS that are less addressed in calculation and measurement. To me this is far from MAGIC as it gets. It is hard science through and through. I’ll stick to the proper design and calculation well before I push materials as a solution to the problem(s). If “magic” is measured someday, the best electromagnetic design will show that materials true capability. My designs are getting ready for when that happens.
Best,
Galen
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The flat Townshend cables I use, a reference cable for many professionals, have only ever been copper. The only significant change over the last 40 years was about 15 years ago when they started cryogenically treating the copper. In English, I understand that to mean super-cooling it to below -200F to shrink it and regularise the crystalline structure, which is retained as long at is allowed to warm up slowly enough.
My family was in the decorative glass business and some glass was manufactured and cooled over a period of 3 days in special ovens to get a particular degree of clarity. May be a similar thing in reverse.
Apparently the cryo process is pretty expensive and adds to the cost of the cable.
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Correct, we listen to the EM wave ( a magnetic field and electric field) as the signal, not the electron flow. The electron flow does throw off the EM wave. There is argument which is first or how the two fields can exist at exactly the same instant in time. If the EM wave, what we see on an oscilliscope, is the same it will theoretically sound the same.
Weirder still, we have ONE voltage at any instant in time. One. ALL the voltages in an instant in time superimpose on on the other and add to a SINGLE value. Using calculus, we can take that all apart again…mostly. Think of it as a bunch of numbers that are added together to be ONE value in time. Based on what is before and after a point in time we can tell what all the other numbers are.
Now we have IM distortion. This happens when two specific frequencies Intermodulate and create NEW and “foreign” signals that were not really there before. So we don’t really add it all up perfectly. Some test show a 19 KHz and 20 KHz signals being “intermodulated” to create IM distortion.
The EM wave is a time based variable. Shift stuff in time and it does indeed change that EM wave as the voltages that compose the “signal” add up differently. We have PHASE and Vp differential (group delay) across frequency that does the time shifting. The argument is how much shift is important across frequency? My take is to minimize the cable stage such that every block added up, analog keeps adding and adding, is more accurate. We have accepted methods to evaluate if we are doing that.
Best,
Galen
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This is precisely why I used Iconoclast cables as my example. Your cables have been maximally designed by you. But the different materials that you offer will impart differences in sound quality (or you wouldn’t bother with them), the design remaining constant.
Maybe my question is pointless.
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I’m with you Ron (and Galen) - I guess I’d say that it is possible to have a cable of slightly inferior design that is made of a material whose sonic properties you like better than another, and so you might prefer that despite not being the better design.
However, all other things being equal - getting the design right is of primary importance. Much like a well-designed speaker with so-so drivers will beat a bad design with the best drivers available.
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Yes, Beef, but my point is simply that, removing the design variable, the material does indeed influence sound quality, which is why some ears prefer TPC over OCC, or whatever.
And that said, Galen’s point that the influence of material changes can not be measured and reported with hard data, means to me that we just don’t know what to or how measure that variable—the variable influence of material changes—what Galen calls “magic”.
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I share the same experience with Ron and Beef and find the sonic characteristics between the Iconoclast line quite dramatic. I get the “design trumps materials” position that Galen claims, and I am a believer and owner of the results. I am also sanguine in the fact that measurements can’t always explain why things sound like they do.
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Science is so friggin’ awesome. I knew in the Geek’s would win even if the naysayers shout louder.
The proof is in the pudding (or cables) as they say.
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Yup👍🏼
I, and other music friends lean more toward the subjectivist side of things. In a way, how could you not? That is all you have at home with your stereo at the end of the day.
That does not mean that I don’t subscribe to Science. Love Science. Respect it. Believe in Science. But also know that it is a continually evolving thing, and that the measuring devices eternally lag behind the ultimate reality of the situation.
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